Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su and Canadian Labor Minister Steve McKinnon have been in communication about the rail closures north of the U.S. border that are already having far-reaching effects on both countries’ economies.
“I spoke with my US colleagues about the rail sector strike and how important the rail sector and jobs are to both our countries,” McKinnon said in a social media post on Thursday morning.
Railroad companies Canadian National (CN) and Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) locked out about 10,000 Teamsters employees on Thursday following the breakdown in labor contract negotiations.
The White House’s National Economic Council (NEC) announced Thursday that it has been monitoring the Canadian rail labor situation for several weeks through its Supply Chain Disruptions Task Force.
“This work, which involves multiple federal agencies, includes extensive analysis and collaboration with industry and other stakeholders to assess and mitigate the impacts on American consumers, businesses and workers,” the White House said in a statement to The Hill.
The White House added that the NEC was “in contact with relevant parties.”
Train operator CN told The Hill on Thursday afternoon that the company is “at the negotiating table and seeking to reach an agreement.”
“Service within the U.S. is unaffected, while cross-border trains are safely parked and ready to depart as soon as service resumes in Canada,” a company spokesperson told The Hill in an email.
Labor experts told The Hill that lockouts are business decisions that prevent workers from coming to work, and are distinct from employee-led strikes, allowing companies to better control equipment and cargo spread across the vast rail network.
“It’s easy to restart work after it’s stopped,” Arthur Wheaton, director of labor studies at the Buffalo Joint Institute of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University, told The Hill. He said that by taking this approach, management is suggesting “we know where all the trains are, so we just freeze everything in place and turn off the power.”
“If the union had the option to strike, it could cause a lot of confusion as it would be unclear when they would strike, which trains would strike and which cities would be affected,” he added.
Early in the negotiations, MacKinnon rejected requests by CN and CPKC to take the contract dispute to binding arbitration, forcing management and the union to reach their own agreement. In August, the Canada Labour Relations Board ruled that maintaining “essential” services during the strike was unnecessary.
The U.S. and Canadian freight rail networks are so closely interwoven that U.S. railroads are concerned about the economic impact of the strike. A prolonged shutdown could have a major impact on a range of industries, a Union Pacific representative said in an email to The Hill.
“For Union Pacific, a shutdown of Canadian rail lines means thousands of vehicles a day cannot cross the border – everything from crucial summer grain and fertilizer to timber for home construction could be affected. A longer-term shutdown could have even more significant impacts,” said Union Pacific spokesperson Robin Tisber.
U.S. railroad BNSF said the outage would not affect its operations but noted that freight would not be routed through the Canadian rail exchange during the outage.
Representatives for the Canadian Teamsters and Canadian labour union CPKC did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the status of negotiations.
Melissa Atkins, a partner at Obermeyer law firm, which often represents management in labor disputes, told The Hill that a strike by dockworkers on the US East Coast could put further strain on North America’s transportation and logistics sector.
“Two strikes on two major ways of transporting goods and everyday items could have a major impact,” she said.
This story was updated at 4:01 p.m.
